Through the Looking Glass

A chronicle of the absurd, in politics and life

Friday, March 26, 2004

So, we already know from Richard Clarke's testimony, and the White
House responses to it, that Dubya's crew were, to say the least, slow
off the mark combatting terrorism. (The response from their side
is kind of a mess; it may be worth looking into once
they get their story straight). And we've long since
heard that this bunch made
a point of deemphasizing ongoing investigations in al-Qaeda, as
soon as they came into office.

Now, that all clearly contrasts with the policy in the Clinton
White House, where dealing with the terrorist threat from al-Qaeda
specifically was front and center -- with regular meetings chaired by
Clarke, reviewing evidence as it became available and willing to take
strong action. Had such a policy been in place in Dubya's White
House, what did it have to review?

Well, there's the case of Zac Moussaoui, who was actually arrested
by an FBI field office who suspected him of wanting mount an attack
involving airplanes. And now there's this,
from a former FBI translator:

Edmonds testified before 9/11 commission staffers in
February for more than three hours, providing detailed information
about FBI investigations, documents and dates. This week Edmonds
attended the commission hearings and plans to return in April when FBI
Director Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify. "I'm hoping the
commission asks him real questions -- like, in April 2001, did an FBI
field office receive legitimate information indicating the use of
airplanes for an attack on major cities? And is it true that through
an FBI informant, who'd been used [by the Bureau] for 10 years, did
you get information about specific terrorist plans and specific cells
in this country? He couldn't say no," she insists.

It is, at this point, well within the realm of possibility that had
Al Gore been elected, and retained Clinton's national security
priorities, strategy, and tactics, we might have gotten a few
headlines about oddball arrests in late August, 2001, and September
11th would have been just a glorious sunny day in New York. And
Republicans like John Ashcroft, if not Ashcroft himself (who,
remember, lost his Senate seat to the dead guy), would even now be
painting Gore administration anti-terrorist plans and priorities as a
sinister plot to undermine the rights of citizens -- just like
Ashcroft himself did
incessantly while Democrats were nominally in charge of federal
law enforcement.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the war on
terrorism what the Spanish Civil War was to World War II. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is where airline hijacking, suicide
bombing and assassinations with helicopter-mounted guided missiles
were all perfected and made ready for export.

But it's not only types of violence that were perfected there. It
was also there where Palestinian terrorists regularly attempted to
hijack democratic elections on the eve of the vote. Liberal Labor
Party candidates in Israel, throughout the 1980's and 1990's, always
had to hold their breath that there would not be a big terrorist
attack on the eve of an election. Because if there was, swing voters
would usually move to the right and the Likud candidate would
benefit. The Palestinian terrorists always "voted" Likud, not
Labor. They wanted hard-liners at the helm in Israel because they
would build more settlements and further radicalize and destabilize
the situation.

And he cascades that, in turn, to a second analogy -- between those
Israeli elections, and the recent elections in Spain, which currently
has troops occupying Iraq, and was just subject to a massive terrorist
attack. This is a powerful and lofty argument -- no matter that the
Spaniards, in their own election, voted their own hawks out.

Friedman, you see, is focused on his grand vision of a long-term
occupation, building a perfect, Western, free-trading secular
democracy in Iraq. An early end to the occupation, no matter for what
reason, would imperil that vision. But take heart, Tom. The Spanish
contingent just isn't that big; most of the troops are American, and
it's American policy that will tell the tale of what kind of
occupation we get.

Right now, American policy seems to be to get the hell out by June
30th, and devil take the hindmost.

I'm not nearly as optimistic about Friedman about
what the continuing occupation could bring -- but if a continued occupation
is what he wants, he should write about the real problems with sustaining one. The
fall of Aznar's reign in Spain has nothing to do with that. But this column does show
us what makes Friedman unique: how many other columnists would greet a new
Spanish government by publicly lecturing them on the lessons of the Spanish
civil war?

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

A bit more on Microsoft -- Brad Delong's account of why he has been harmed by their anticompetitive behavior:

Remember the days when there was not one single dominant browser that came preinstalled on 95% of PCs sold? Back then there was ferocious competition in the browser market, as first a number of competitors and then Netscape and Microsoft worked furiously to upgrade their browsers and add new features to them. Most of these new features turned out to be idiotic. Some turned out to be very useful. Progress in making better browsers was rapid, because browser-makers wanted to make a better product and any new idea about what a browser should be was rapidly deployed to a large enough user base to make it worthwhile for web designers to try to use the new feature.

And now? There is no progress in browsers at all. Why should anyone (besides crazed open sourcies) write a new browser? Why should Microsoft spend any money improving its browser? The point of giving Internet Explorer away for free is to protect Windows's market, after all.

So, the open source folks are crazies -- and so sure is Brad that he doesn't even bother to check whether they have in fact produced a superior browser. For he knows, with the certainty that only economists can have about any human behavior, that doing skilled work for the sheer joy of the craft is a form of insanity.

I wonder how much his salary as an economics professor compares to what he could get on Wall Street?

Microsoft has been fined $613 million by the European Union for antitrust violations. And now, the tech world waits with bated breath to find out if the company, with cash reserves above $50 billion, will actually care...

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

The interesting question about Clinton's reforms in welfare --
formally, Aid to Families with Dependant Children -- was not what
would happen immediately after they were passed, but what would happen
in the next recession, after the five-year limits had run out for some
recipients. Would they still be able to get the help they would need?
What would occur?
And now we have
the
answer:

In a trend that has surprised many experts, the federal
welfare rolls have declined over the last three years, even as
unemployment, poverty and the number of food stamp recipients have
surged in a weak economy.

Success! Even in the midst of a recession, with total jobs
stagnant and the size of the labor force actually declining, the poor
are being saved from the degrading experience of taking welfare
payments.

And don't suggest that the right thing for government to do would
be to give those people education. What would training do for them?
College graduates in Dubya's economy have a higher
unemployment rate than high-school dropouts.

Because compassionate conservatism is all about saving people from
degrading attitudes and conditions -- like saving the undeserving kids
of poor families with dependant children from the degradation of
eating government handouts. Starvation builds character.

Monday, March 22, 2004

At Large returned to his work of disrupting the crowd. He
told one peace activist that he was there to monitor and photograph
the criminals and anti-American scum that attend these events.

And, in the spirit of civility championed by such lions of the
right as George Will and Bill Bennett, they have some kindly meant
advice for their respected, loyal opposition:

If I see you or any of your comrades from Dem
Underground I will kick the living shit out of you you filthy
faggotcunt traitor

DO NOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF AS LEFTIST OUT ON THE STREET YOU PIECE OF
SHIT OR YOU WILL BE BEATEN UNCONSCIOUS YOU GODDAM ENEMY OF
AMERICA!!!!!

These folks are, of course, completely committed to American
values, and it would be surely libelous to suggest otherwise. They've
even named the web site that they use to organize their activities
"Free Republic".